VisualSP Help System Versions

There are three versions of the premium VisualSP Help system.
The explanation below will help you decide which one is the right version for your organization.

VisualSP Express

VisualSP Standard

VisualSP Enterprise

Contextual help through Help tab

X

X

X

105 videos, reference documents and tip sheets

X

X

X

VisualSP web part

X

X

X

Customize with your own content

X

X

X

Page level Help control

X

X

X

Site collection level Help control

X

X

X

Web application level Help control

X

X

Farm level Help control

X

X

Analytics on VisualSP product usage

X

VisualSP Enterprise

VisualSP Enterprise is for organizations who wish to have maximum control on the management of Help assets and would like the ability to view the products usage at various levels.

This product lets the SharePoint administrator manage Help assets at the farm level and at the web application level. This facility allows for easy management of all Help items from one central location.
The following is the screenshot of the VisualS Enterprise help provider settings page:

VisualSP Enterprise provides the ability to designate a site collection as a hub for holding all the Help items and serving it to other site collections. This can be accomplished in two ways:

Designating a site collection as a hub to provide Help items throughout to all site collections in the SharePoint farm

Designating a site collection as a hub to provide Help items to all the site collections in a particular web application

In addition, all product usage is visible for the SharePoint administrators. These analytics provide a way for SharePoint site collection administrators, web application administrators and farm administrators to get a view at exactly which Help assets are being utilized, when they are utilized and who is utilizing the product in the organization.
The following screenshot shows the analytics screen for VisualSP Enterprise:

VisualSP Standard

VisualSP Standard has all the same functionality of Enterprise except the analytics data. The product usage data is only available through the Enterprise version of the product.

VisualSP Express

VisualSP Express has all the same features of VisualSPTM Standard except the ability to manage Help items at the web application and farm level.

The following is the screenshot of the VisualSP Express help provider settings page:

The inheritance functionality is not available. The list of Help items for each site collection is managed at the site collection level.
However, the Help content itself (for example: videos, documents, images etc.) can be stored at a central level within the farm just like the Standard and Enterprise versions.

VisualSP Help items list

Following screenshot shows the list of Help items at a farm hub level serving all site collections in the farm:

In the VisualSP Standard and Enterprise editions, this list of Help items can be managed at the web application and the farm level.

In the VisualSP Express edition, the list of Help items must be managed at that site collection level. If you wish to have the same Help items as another site collection in the farm, the list of those Help items can be exported and imported into this site collection (a very quick process).